Search results for " Indian"
showing 10 items of 57 documents
A new species ofLimonium(Plumbaginaceae) from Soqotra (Yemen)
2009
Abstract Limonium guigliae, from the island of Soqotra (Yemen) is described. This new species, close to L. paulayanum differs from it by its size, flower morphology and ecology.
Clonal Interference and the Evolution of RNA Viruses
1999
In asexual populations, beneficial mutations that occur in different lineages compete with one another. This phenomenon, known as clonal interference, ensures that those beneficial mutations that do achieve fixation are of large effect. Clonal interference also increases the time between fixations, thereby slowing the adaptation of asexual populations. The effects of clonal interference were measured in the asexual RNA virus vesicular stomatitis virus; rates and average effects of beneficial mutations were quantified.
The TaqIB and −629C>A polymorphisms at the cholesteryl ester transfer protein locus: associations with lipid levels in a multiethnic population. T…
2002
The Singapore population comprises Chinese, Malays and Asian Indians. Within this population, Asian Indians have the highest rates of coronary heart disease, whereas Chinese have the lowest. Conversely, Indians have the lowest high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations, followed by Malays and Chinese. We studied the TaqIB and -629C>A polymorphisms at the CETP locus in 1300 Chinese, 364 Malay and 282 Asian Indian men, and in 1558 Chinese, 397 Malay and 306 Asian Indian women, to determine whether these polymorphisms are responsible for the ethnic difference in HDL-C concentration. The frequency of the B2 allele in Chinese, Malays and Indians was 0.384, 0.339 and 0.449 in men…
Is group selection a factor modulating the virulence of RNA viruses?
1997
RNA viruses consist of populations of extremely high genetic heterogeneity called quasispecies. Based on theoretical considerations, it has been suggested that the unit of selection in such complex genetic populations is not the single viral particle but a set of genetically related particles which form the quasispecies. In the present study we carried out a set of experiments with the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) dealing with the evolution of life-history characters under selection acting at two factors either in the same or in opposite directions. The two factors at which selective pressure is applied are the individual and the group. We show evidence that group selection modulates th…
The cost of replication fidelity in an RNA virus
2005
It is often argued that high mutation rates are advantageous for RNA viruses, because they confer elevated rates of adaptation. However, there is no direct evidence showing a positive correlation between mutation and adaptation rates among RNA viruses. Moreover, theoretical work does not argue in favor of this prediction. We used a series of vesicular stomatitis virus clones harboring single amino acid substitutions in the RNA polymerase to demonstrate that changes inducing enhanced fidelity paid a fitness cost, but that there was no positive correlation between mutation an adaptation rates. We demonstrate that the observed mutation rate in vesicular stomatitis virus can be explained by a t…
Epistasis and the Adaptability of an RNA Virus
2005
Abstract We have explored the patterns of fitness recovery in the vesicular stomatitis RNA virus. We show that, in our experimental setting, reversions to the wild-type genotype were rare and fitness recovery was at least partially driven by compensatory mutations. We compared compensatory adaptation for genotypes carrying (1) mutations with varying deleterious fitness effects, (2) one or two deleterious mutations, and (3) pairs of mutations showing differences in the strength and sign of epistasis. In all cases, we found that the rate of fitness recovery and the proportion of reversions were positively affected by population size. Additionally, we observed that mutations with large fitness…
Following the very initial growth of biological RNA viral clones
2005
Due to their extremely high genetic diversity, which is a direct consequence of high mutation rates, RNA viruses are often described as molecular quasispecies. According to this theory, RNA virus populations cannot be understood in terms of individual viral clones, as they are clouds of interconnected mutants, but this prediction has not yet been demonstrated experimentally. The goal of this study was to determine the fitness of individual clones sampled from a given RNA virus population, a necessary previous step to test the above prediction. To do so, limiting dilutions of a vesicular stomatitis virus population were employed to isolate single viral clones and their initial growth dynamic…
Repeated transfer of small RNA virus populations leading to balanced fitness with infrequent stochastic drift
1996
The population dynamics of RNA viruses have an important influence on fitness variation and, in consequence, on the adaptative potential and virulence of this ubiquitous group of pathogens. Earlier work with vesicular stomatitis virus showed that large population transfers were reproducibly associated with fitness increases, whereas repeated transfers from plaque to plaque (genetic bottlenecks) lead to losses in fitness. We demonstrate here that repeated five-plaque to five-plaque passage series yield long-term fitness stability, except for occasional stochastic fitness jumps. Repeated five-plaque passages regularly alternating with two consecutive large population transmissions did not cau…
Vivere come donne in India: l'insolito genere delle comunità hijra
2021
The study aims to investigate the history and practices that characterize hijra communities in India in order to shed light on the specific reality of these heterogeneous communities of individuals who are placed outside the heteronormative identity codes, but who have historically been included within Indian society, with very specific roles, thanks to the elaboration of the notion of tṛtīya prakṛti (third gender). However, historical events, especially since the British colonial period, have made the position of hijras increasingly marginal: the various forms of discrimination and violence, which take place within the family of origin, the health system, and society in general, were furth…
“From Savage to Sublime (And Partway Back): Indians and Antiquity in Early Nineteenth-Century American Literature”
2016
This article examines the comparisons made between Indians and Antiquity in early nineteenth-century American literature (notably in the works of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper); to do so, it begins by reaching back to references in European and American writings of the eighteenth century. One of the main motivations behind the associations between Native Americans and the Ancient World made in the early decades of the nineteenth century was to “elevate” Indians in order to transform them into worthy symbols of the recently established United States. Such associations also rendered them suitable subjects for treatment by authors inspired to a large extent by the Romantic Moveme…